Found this pic of a series of banners I designed to promote my horror/sci-fi con Monsters and Robots. I banged out eight of these in one afternoon with the help of the mighty David Smith cleaning up my concepts and color choices.

What was originally a news site about all things monsters and robots and their respective genres, morphed into a convention in 2016. For a new show, it had its marketing challenges, but the fans loved it and the vendors did well. But my Lyme disease came back around that time, so I shelved Monsters and Robots until 2018. More news about that soon.

I’ve enjoyed Liev Schreiber since I saw him in the 1996 indie film Daytrippers opposite Parker Posey. He stars in Ray Donovan as the fixer Ray Donovan and his unique look compelled me to put pen to paper.

Okay — some time has passed since I launched the Asbury Park Comicon. And at some point I’ll write more about what went into making it a reality. I could say it was a lot of work or it was hard, but there’s no way to measure that, and hard compared to what? We’d just come off of Hurricane Sandy — I think what the victims of the storm were going through was hard, what we went through was a challenge.

But with everything that life, nature, and city politics put in our way, we did reach May 30th, 2013 and the fans showed up. As did the talent. It was a glorious, if not frantic day. Friends from as far back as high school visited to wish me well (brought together through the magic of social media), as well as family, neighbors, old employees from my screen printing days, and the comics community.

We invited some great guests, some who’ve turned into friends. I especially had a great time with Ren & Stimpy co-creator Bob Camp and punk artist John Holmstom.
At one point at dinner with them, I laughed so hard I though shrimp would shoot out of my nostrils.

Other than that, the day was a blur with interviews, autographs, a costume contest judged by my neighborhood celebs Bryan Johnson, Mike Zapcic and Ming Chen of AMC-TV’sÂ Comic Book Men, and Brian O’Halloran of the filmÂ Clerk’s.

Oh, yeah — and here’s MAD Magazine’s Al Jaffee a week after turning 95 with me on the Asbury Park boardwalk. When I originally invited him 6 months earlier, he said, “Cliff, I’ll be there if I’m still alive.” To which I replied, “Me too, Al.” And a month later I was hit by a car. So never kid about that shit.

.And it was Judie’s birthday and someone made her a special gluten free cake!

I have a lot more to say about this event, with Allen Bellman, Danny Fingeroth, Herb Trimpe, Evan Dorkin Sarah Dyer, Jim Salicrup, and will ad to this soon.

Been working on this on and off since October. If you look at the post back in October, you can see the hands were mushy. I originally just wanted to bang this out, not worry about style, craft, or quality — just let the humor speak for itself — kinda like South Park. But I can draw, and so I did. I redesigned parts of the characters, got a voice actor to play Batman, and worked to tighten everything up. I’m still adding to this, but this is the first start to finish version I’m willing to show. Much love to Joe Oesterle for his contribution on the script. Thanks to Adam Taylor for vocals and John Noll for sound.

Here’s as good’a place as any to post this. Batman director Kevin Altieri did an amazing job on this. Check out John DiMaggio (voice of Bender on Futurama) at the beginning and very end. He was replaced by Greg Proops (not sure why). EG Daily (of zillions of cartoons like Power Puff Girls and Rug Rats, and Pee Wee’s girlfriend Dotty in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure) voice’s Roscoe’s ex-girlfriend.

I could go into what I liked and what I wouldn’t have put in, but it’s a short — it was eye-candy to show the suits at UPN back in 2000.

So far, I’ve only posted Saurus work here — something I’m beginning to rethink. I’ve always compartmentalized everything I’ve created, never wanting to mix the edgier Crucial Comics with the mainstream licensed stuff. Even going as far as to work under a pseudonym. It’s high time I put it all under one roof (or blog). For my first non-Saurus posts, is sketch of Dwight and Michael from “The Office.” I’m working on a series of drawings that depict some of my favorite television characters and personalities. Jeesh — I feel like I’m in high school again. What’s next? My favorite bands? But I make no apologies, I enjoy doing character drawings. So let the drawings flow.